


The Marks They Bear

by Khyeili



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst and Tragedy, Blood, Gen, Sad, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1344850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khyeili/pseuds/Khyeili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone gets them, at one point or another.</p><p>They are the pain, the guilt, the regrets a person carries, physically manifested on their skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Marks They Bear

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a dream I had a while ago. I was standing in a circle with a bunch of people, and they pushed up their sleeves and showed me these tattoos on their arms, explaining how they were their regrets and their guilt. The idea stuck with me, so here we are!

Everyone gets them, at one point or another.

They are the pain, the guilt, the regrets a person carries, physically manifested on their skin.

The meanings of some are as clear as day, while others are shrouded in mystery.

On the first day of training, the drill instructor passed over those who already had extensive marks across their body, wrapped in painful histories and stories left unsaid.

Some fade with time.

Others don’t.

Mikasa had an enormous black dragon circling her torso, its bloodied mouth opened in a roar between her shoulderblades. Jagged, red lines run down her hands and feet, turning black as they reach her toes and fingertips. Below her eyes were two green ellipses that radiated out across her face in fissures that seemed to glow at night.

Eren had thick, black lines that sprouted from his eyes, bleeding down his body with flecks of red and gold. Over his heart was a ball of fire, a swirling mass of reds and yellows that burned as brightly as his fierce determination.

Armin had the sea painted on his back, the waves creeping up his neck and washing down his spine, growing black and jagged the lower it went down his body.  His feet were stained black, splattered with specks of red.

Everyone had them.

All except for Jean.

Jean’s skin was clear.

Everyone thought that he was hiding some secret, some deep, dark mark in a hidden place upon his body.  But after an embarrassing incident in the showers, it was revealed that he simply had none.

That is, until the battle of Trost.

As he watched his screaming comrades being torn apart so that the rest of them could make it to the resupply building, flecks of dark red appeared on his hands, smearing across his palms and fingertips as if to say, _you killed us_.

No matter how hard he rubbed them, they would not come off.

Even beneath his gloves, he could feel the marks burning into his skin, the guilt eating away at his flesh.

And then he saw him.

As he looked upon the body of his friend, his _best_ friend, lying at an awkward angle, smashed up against a building, half of his face and chest simply _gone_ , leaving a pool of blood and his exposed insides to the rotten, stagnant air, he could feel nothing but pain balled up in his throat, a tightness in his chest and an emptiness in his gut that twisted with shock and horror and grief and disgust with every passing moment, unable to step back, unable to turn away.

When his shift was over, he numbly returned to the barracks, sitting in the mess hall, staring blankly into space. Unable, or perhaps, unwilling, to fully process the reality before him.

Connie walked by, holding a bowl of soup.

“Hey Jean, you got some shit on your face.”

His voice snapped him out of his haze, and his face twisted viciously with an ugly snarl.

“Fuck you.”

He shrugged.  “Just helpin’ a brother out.”

Connie now had a few stark white marks following the veins on his hands, weaving over themselves in a grotesque pattern only they understood.

Jean stood up, leaving his plate of untouched food behind.

He passed Sasha, whose face was now covered in black marks that ran down her face, seeming to collect beneath her collar. Her eyes were empty and skittish, and she barely showed any signs of recognition of the people around her as she walked through the barracks.

In fact, most of the soldiers still alive now bore large, extensive marks.  One girl getting patched up in the corner now had a pair of bloody handprints etched into her arm and shoulder, the rivulets running down to her ashy black hand. Another boy had silver lines emanating from his eyes, following the curve of his cheekbones before turning thick and red at his jawline.

Jean went to the bathroom, grabbing a small towel and wetting it in the sink.  He looked up at the mirror, inspecting the small dark specks on his face.

Where the hell did he get them? Was it dirt?  Blood?

He stopped dead.

No.

They were _freckles_.

No.

_No._

He ran to the toilets and violently retched.

He shakily returned to the mirror, staring at his face.

The pattern was the same.

The same fucking constellation of freckles he saw on his face every day at training when he smiled or laughed at a joke, on his goddamn _corpse_ that he had to fucking identify because _no one else could_.

Jean struggled for air, heart racing as he took in gasping breaths, desperately trying to calm himself.

He was unable to look away, staring at the all too familiar freckles scattered across his cheeks.

And then, to his mounting horror, they were _spreading_.

He watched, stomach twisting, hands shaking, as more dark specks appeared down his neck and beneath his collar.

Jean tore off his jacket, unbuckling his 3D maneuver gear and unbuttoning his shirt, ripping it open.  The freckles were scattered across his shoulders, spreading down his chest and arms.

He looked down at his shaking hands, the freckles turning dark red at his hands, smearing and splattering on his palms, running down to his fingertips.

Jean choked on air, whipping around to the sinks, turning on the freezing water, plunging his tainted hands into the basin.

He needed to get rid of them, it was too much, too _fucking_ much, he couldn’t, he just couldn’t face the freckles, the marks he’d see in every goddamn mirror, the stains on his hands that would never be clean.

He furiously scrubbed, _clawed_ at his hands, fingers reddening as the skin began to peel off under his nails, and soon blood ran down his hands and the water stung but they _still wouldn’t come off_.

Jean recoiled, stumbling until his back hit the bathroom wall, sliding down with a pained wail, tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

He wept into his bloodied hands, fingers clenching and unclenching in his hair, deep, shuddering sobs wracking his body as grief overtook him.

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I had space to explain every character's tattoos, but that would've taken forever.
> 
> Sasha had a potato on her hip for a solid few months after the incident with Shadis. The other trainees just wouldn't let her live it down.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [your hollow souls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558985) by [ohmyheichou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyheichou/pseuds/ohmyheichou)




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